Health

The number of congenital syphilis cases has ballooned to rates not seen in two decades. Public health workers say the increase coincides with a decline in funding for public health and a drop in the rate of women accessing prenatal care.

Once considered an infection nearly eradicated, congenital syphilis rates have risen dramatically in California. Community health workers fan out across communities to find and treat patients who are often homeless or battling addiction.

The state’s health care workers union has placed measures on the ballot in two California cities that would raise the minimum wage at private facilities. Critics fear hospitals and other facilities would pass on the costs to consumers.

The bill by two Assembly Democrats followed a CalMatters investigation that exposed serious flaws in the state’s nursing home licensing system.

As other states restrict or ban abortions, the California laws aim to improve access and protect patients and clinicians. They will also expand services to accommodate an expected influx from other states.

The state's new Medi-Cal contracts are part of an overhaul to improve patient care. But some say the new providers aren't fully prepared to handle more Medi-Cal patients.

With demand rising for mental health care, and providers in short supply, experts explain how California got here - and where we may be headed.

In the face of overwhelming demand, a Medi-Cal program providing assisted living for low-income patients is expanding, but slowly. In the meantime, family caretakers struggle with jobs, child care and other responsibilities as they wait.

A beleaguered state program that provides hearing aids to children may soon include families with partial insurance coverage and youth up to 21 years old after the Legislature included the expansion in the budget bills. About 2,000 more children would be helped.

Although a California bill would have allowed vaccines for teens without parental consent made it to the final days of the legislative session, it failed to pass. Some legislators saw the bill as an “overreach” that undermined parental decisions.